Explaining the level of vitiriol on these boards towards munchkins is relatively simple (though it is in two parts):
1) Members of this board have put significant amount of time and energy acquiring system mastery of this game we all play (or at least talk about). A munchkin makes that system mastery useless/obsolete by ignoring the rules. It's why many optimizers hate having major houserules changed after game start, since they might invalidate or degrade choices that they made previously. A munchkin basically says "you know all those rules & options that you know about? F that."
2) Munchkins are part of the reason why min/maxing is such a derogatory term around lots of gaming tables. Non-optimizers get pissed at cheaters and then take it out on optimizers, who get grouped together.
So it's part frustration, part righteous indignation. This may help.
I think you have a great point about how cheating renders system mastery invalid, and I can sympathise with that, but it still supports my earlier assertion about the competitive environment. After all, it's like someone who cheats their way through college. You could argue it's unfair for those who do study and take the tests fairly, but what reason is there to feel upset if it isn't because of an implicit competition in regards to academic performance?
Your second half is probably the one with the most weight, since I fully understand it and I honestly cannot criticise it. However, we don't really know the personal circumstances of that myriad of groups. What if there's a group where the DM has so much system mastery or abuses DM Fiat that the only way to keep playing is to outright cheat? What if there's a group where everyone has system mastery and the lone person that doesn't feels like they have to cheat to keep up with everyone else? What if the reasons for cheating come from outside the game? Obviously, all these questions have easy, standard answers. "Don't bring your personal issues to the table, it's always better to work hard to earn your system mastery than to cheat, if you aren't having a good time and you feel like you have to cheat then you shouldn't play in a game where the DM is out to kill you and make you suffer." All these are perfect ideal answers, but we're not perfect ideal people. We all make less than optimal decisions, particularly in the spur of the moment, and it's frighteningly easy for an honest min-maxer to cross the line and become a munchkin if the conditions are right.
While it's true that munchkins can give min-maxers a bad name, it's also true that any of us can become a munchkin if the right conditions are met.
This is a very good summary of my opinion aswell. It is similar on so many levels.
As for the damage caused, the in-game effect might be small. But me knowing that a fellow player will break rules as he sees fit is the bigger damage. It's damage to my trust for my fellow players. And without trust, I will not enjoy playing with them.
Again, the example from Demelain works here aswell. I would probably have lent my friend $20 (and even if he stole it, $20 is just $20 in the long run), but that he takes them without asking would likely damage my trust for him.
Best Regards
Yirrare
Yes, but A) cheating on a game isn't the same as taking money from your wallet. The spirit of the betrayal might be the same, but the damages caused are completely different. And B) don't you think that having scorn/distaste for someone you'd never play with further fractures our subculture? After all, if you know you'd never play with someone like that, so what's the point in preemptively holding them in a negative view? I know there are a lot of types of players I'd personally would never play with, but that doesn't mean I hold them in a negative light, precisely because I know they'll never adversely affect my own games.
Much of what I would have said has been said. I generally agree that optimizers take a particularly dim view of cheaters/munchkins because they represent an approach to the game that invalidates not just a skill set, but one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game. They also represent something of a spit in the eye for those of us who spent a grand on gaming books. Why look over the books when you can just add numbers to your sheet and make crap up?
Also, the internet lends itself to hyperbole. So it's not like we place munchkins and child molesters on the same moral plane, but the language of the internet does not deal well in gradations of scorn.
As for people who honestly don't care if someone at their table always crits, has a million hit points, and teabags dragons to death... They don't deserve to burn in hell for their crimes, but they don't sound like people I would enjoy gaming with. While, in theory, we don't need to expend vitriol towards such people, their existence is frustrating for anyone like myself who is actively looking for players/DMs.
Imagine if you went to the store and saw a rack of containers all marked "Chocolate Pudding." You say to yourself, "Hey! I love chocolate pudding!" So, you buy a few containers, crack one open, eat a big spoonful and... It's strawberry flavored. You hate strawberry. Your next container is vanilla, which is okay, but you prefer chocolate. The containers continue to have random flavors, but are all marked "chocolate."
Likewise, a group saying that they are looking for a 3.5 player could get a cheater, an optimizer, and a rules illiterate roleplayer. I really prefer to play with only one flavor of gamer, but they all come in the same container.
That's a very interesting take, and I can definitely sympathise with that, but it seems like people who want to play with X kind of gamer can easily just advertise the kind of gamer they want and wait for the right people to find them. After all, our hobby is growing, so it's only a matter of time before we all find like-minded people.
@Shadowknight
To say that Dave cheating in an area that no one cares about -- combat, which is also let's be clear, batshit insane given that combat is such a huge part of this game, seriously, if you don't want combat, play something else -- and therefore is fine is a mistake.
Cheating invalidates other character's decisions. Bob's decision to not be good in combat but shine in other areas is invalidated by Dave ignoring the rules/stuff on his character sheet. And, 90% of the characters you've listed just aren't PCs. Jake isn't a PC. There's no reason for him to trundle along with the party. He's that guy back in camp you buy things from.
Nothing I have said has anything to do with your (to my thinking bizarre) assumption that we're all being competitive.
Frankly, I think your arguments for why "cheating might be fine" are shoddy. Given the description you propose, you might as well throw the rules out the window. And, as I indicated earlier, what you have described is a party where exactly 1 person actually participates in combat encounters. How could that possibly be good thing? Who would run a game where for hours on end 3/4s of the players essentially sit around and do nothing? Who would want to play in such a game?
And, as a side note, I've helped make or play version of Alice, Gina, Frank, Holly, and Jake. They were not "useless in combat" for reasons stated above. But, they all used mechanics to realize these things. Alice's "chosen one" nature was reflected through mutably-fluffed mechanics. Not through constant DM fiat.
Yeah, I had a similar argument in other forums regarding the whole "If you aren't playing D&D the way we play D&D, you ought to play something else" thing. The thread went on pages and pages and I'm still completely unconvinced. I have every right to play D&D any way I see fit, and if I want to play a character that is completely useless in combat (or run a game that is less than 10% combat), I have every right to do so and that doesn't make me any less of a D&D player. Trust me, nobody's going to move me from that position. It's better to just take a deep breath and accept that there are people out there who play the same game in completely different ways
and that's okay.
Here's a puppy to show you how okay it is:
So yeah, I can totally see where you're coming from, but the underlying assumptions you're making is that A) Everyone must be good or decent at combat, B) Combat must be a big part of the game (3/4ths to be exact), C) Everyone must play by the rules (and the rules are sacred, unless modified by the game's arbiter), D) People who deviate from the median/average combat proficiency set by the group (those who cheat to get ahead or those who don't fit the minimum standards) are to be corrected or removed.
Surely you see where I'm getting the "competitive environment" from, don't you? Every player must be in roughly the same level of proficiency, the players must spend most of the game doing a single activity, which is heavily regulated by rules and calculations, and any attempts to deviate from this model must be corrected. We could replace D&D with any other sort of competitive sport or game and the same principles would apply.
Now granted, I'm not saying that the competition must be adversary (as there are many different types of competition). It can easy be cooperative competition, where everyone competes towards the same goal (defeating an encounter). This is the type of competition that you can find in WoW raids, for example, or when players group into teams in games like LoL or any co-op shooter. In this type of competitive environment, players are expected to meet a certain degree of system mastery, from having the right gear to knowing how to use their abilities to being the right class. There IS competition in these games, of that you can be sure. It's not adversary competition (except in things like PvP), but there's still a pressure for players to compete in order to achieve an agreed-upon standard of system mastery.
Your first sentence covers why Dave has, in fact, harmed someone. He agreed to play a game with rules and then ignored those rules, betraying that trust. It doesn't matter whether he would have been allowed to break those rules if he'd asked first because he didn't ask first.
Now that's not saying that Dave should be strung up by his thumbs for this, necessarily, but it is unambiguously a bad thing and it seems that even you agree with this so I'm not sure why we're still having this conversation.
I fail to see how that's a contradiction, since you're making assumptions here (that betraying the rules is by its very nature a harm upon... who? the DM? fellow players? everyone at the table?) that I don't share. That's why we're having this conversation, because A) There are things that puzzle me, and B) Every community can benefit from discussing things they often do or say without questioning. It's called introspection, and it's usually considered a good thing.
